What to expect: I'm a review participant – 15Five Help Center

You were added as a participant in a review cycle...now what? This article walks you through the process of completing a review cycle as a participant.

In this article, you will learn...

How to write reviews
How to manage your peer nominations
What attending a final meeting with your manager to discuss review results looks like
How to download/print your review results
What review-specific notifications you may receive

🎥 Are you more of a visual learner? Check out our video on how to complete a Best-Self Review® cycle as a participant.

Write reviews

The foundation of any review cycle is writing and submitting reviews. You may be asked to write a self, manager, additional manager, peer, or upward review (depending on what review types are included in the review cycle).

Review types

The following review types may be included in a review cycle:

Self: A participant writes a review about themselves.
Manager: A participant's manager writes a review about them.
Additional Manager: One or more secondary managers write a manager review about a participant.
Peer: A participant's colleagues write reviews about them.
Upward: A participant's direct reports write review about them.

See what reviews you're responsible for writing

You can see a list of all reviews you're responsible for writing by opening the review cycle's overview page and looking at the 'Your review to-dos' section. To open a review cycle's overview page, click on Best-Self Review® in 15Five's main, left-hand navigation bar and click on the name of the review cycle you want to write a review in. Your to-dos will appear at the top of the page.

Write reviews

Follow the steps in our "Write or edit a review" Help Center article to complete and write your self review and any other reviews you may be asked to write.

Some things to note:

No one can see an in-progress/drafted review. Reviews you write are not visible until you submit them.
You can see when a review is due, as well as transparency of your submitted review, by opening the review and referring to the 'Review details' box on the left-hand side.
While writing a review, click View resources at the bottom of the 'Review details' box and a section will appear on the right-hand side of your screen that includes High Fives, Wins & challenges, Objectives, Past Check-ins, and Past reviews. You can use these resources to complete the review.

Edit submitted reviews

If you left out a piece of important feedback, or simply want to change one of your answers, you can edit a submitted review you wrote about a review cycle participant. A review that has been reopened for editing will temporarily be unavailable for anyone besides the review author to view. The review will also temporarily be removed from reporting. The review will reappear when you resubmit it.

Check out this article for steps on how to edit a submitted review.

Manage peer nominations

If your review cycle includes peer reviews, you will have peer reviews written about you and you may be asked to write peer reviews about others. This section walks through nominating peers to review you and accepting or declining peer nominations you receive.

Nominate peers to review you

If your review cycle includes peer reviews, you are responsible for nominating peers to review you. Your manager, cycle collaborators, and review admins can also nominate peers to review you.

Depending on your peer review deadlines, you may be nominating peers and completing peer reviews at the same time you're working on your self review. The biggest issue we see with the peer nomination/review process is participants who do not nominate peers in time for the peers to write their reviews. Let's talk through the steps and timeframes, so you are aware of what actions to take.

Nominate peers to review you. Your manager, cycle collaborators, and review admins can also nominate peers on your behalf during this window.
Your manager, cycle collaborators, and review admins will see the peers you nominated and will approve or deny the nominations.
Once your nominations are approved or declined, the peers you nominated will be asked to accept or decline the nomination.
If a peer accepts your nomination, they will write a peer review about you.
If a peer declines your nomination, you can remove that nomination so you're able to nominate another peer in their place.
Before the peer nomination deadline approaches, you should visit your 'Peer nominations' tab to check the status of the nominations you sent. The 'Peer nomination' tab is available in the top navigation bar of the review cycle.

Refer to our "Nominate peers to review me" Help Center article for steps on how to nominate peers.

Accept or decline your peer nominations

If another review cycle participant nominates you as a peer and their nomination is approved by their manager, you have the option to accept or decline that peer nomination. Keep in mind that if you accept 15 nominations, you are going to be asked to complete 15 peer reviews, so accept wisely!

Follow the steps in our "Accept or decline peer nominations" article to accept or decline peer nominations. If you accept a peer nomination, refer to our "Write a review" article for steps on how to complete your peer review.

Attend a final meeting with your manager to discuss review results

Once all reviews are submitted, your manager will prep your review summary to share with you. 15Five suggests that managers meet with their direct reports to discuss the summary. After this meeting takes place, your manager will finalize the Summary and share all reviews with you (including their manager review of you and any peer/upward reviews from your co-workers).

Access your review summary

Your review summary is a collection of all reviews that were written about you. Once your manager shares review results with you, you can access your review summary.

Acknowledge results of your review cycle

After results have been shared with a review cycle participant and a final review meeting is held between the participant and their manager, 15Five gives the option for participants to "acknowledge" they've seen their review results and held a meeting with their manager. Follow these steps to acknowledge your review results.

Download or print your review results (optional)

Once your manager has finalized your review summary, you can download or print it for your records. Results are stored in 15Five, so you can also access your results at any time in-app.

Participant-specific review notifications

The following email notifications may be sent to you at some point during a review cycle. Many of these notifications can be disabled or sent to Slack, rather than email, in your individual notification settings.

General

Notification	Description	Trigger	Can this notification be disabled?
Kick-off email	General email containing important review cycle details. Contains a link to fill out your self review, as well as a review cycle timeline with due dates.	8:23am in the company's timezone on the day the review cycle starts.	Yes— in individual notification settings.

Review writing/submission

Notification	Description	Trigger	Can this notification be disabled?
Reminder to complete a review	This email is sent to remind review writers to submit a review that's due soon.	Sent 3 days before a review is due and the day the review is due. Won't be sent if you've already submitted the review.	Yes— in individual notification settings.
Reviews are past-due	This email is sent to review writers that did not submit their review(s) by the deadline.	The day after the due day for the review.	Yes— in individual notification settings.
When a review is submitted about you			Yes— in individual notification settings.
Nudge to submit a review	This email is sent out to remind review writers to submit a review.	When a manager or review leader sends you a nudge to complete a review.	No.
Review is reopened	This email is sent to inform the participant that their manager has allowed editing of their self review.	When a manager approves the editing of the direct report's self review.	No.
Manager shares review results	This email is sent to participants letting them know that their manager has released the summary for viewing. Admins can opt-out all participants from this email in the review settings page.	When a manager shares the review results.	Yes— in individual notification settings.
Manager finalizes review results	This email is sent to participants letting them know that their manager has finalized the reviews and shared the results with them.	When a manager shares and finalizes review results.	Yes— in individual notification settings.

Peer nominations

Notification	Description	Trigger	Can this notification be disabled?
Nudge to nominate peers	This email is sent to participants reminding them to nominate peers to review them.	When your manager or a review leader nudges you from the 'Peer nominations' tab.	No.
Manager approved peers	This email is sent to participants indicating what peers have been approved by their manager. If peer settings are anonymous, the identities of peers will not be included in the email.	Upon manager approval if approved before the "manager approve peers by" date or the day after "manager approve peers by" date selected if no action is taken by manager.	No.
Peer nominations due	This email is sent to notify participants that their peer nominations are due.	When a peer has not nominated the minimum number of peers within 3 days of the peer nomination deadline. This email is also sent out the day peer nominations are due if enabled in company-wide notification settings.	No.
Peer nomination declined	Sent to the participant indicating that a peer they nominated, and their manager approved, has declined the nomination.	When an already approved peer declines a peer nomination.	No.